Through Another's Eyes
by YnitOcelot
Summary: Four months ago the ambulance came. I was sitting on the landing with my brother playing marbles when it happened and I remember. DIAG from an outsider's perspective.
Four months ago the ambulance came. I was sitting on the landing with my brother playing marbles when it happened and I remember.

I was losing and Joe had just grabbed my favourite marble when a door on the floor below suddenly burst open. A man came out; wild-eyed, his jaw set, and running like he was trying to win a race. Joe whispered that he thought that the man was trying to catch the lift, but the lift was already on the floor so it couldn't have been that. The man smashed back the doors and I heard his breathing, harsh in the near silence.

The lift rattled down. "We should maybe go," I said. I didn't like the speed with which the man had been moving.

Joe shook his head, "I want to know what's happening."

He's only eight. He's a right stubborn one, my Mum says, so sometimes I don't bother arguing.

We stayed put.

I tried to remember who lived in that flat; there had been five different people since we moved here two years ago and it's hard to tell them apart. No one ever lives there for long: Joe's friend's big brother told us it was haunted. Finally, I remembered that it was the nice curly-haired man. I talked to him once. I almost dropped Red Bear on his head because the parachute that I made didn't work. He didn't get angry; he came up to our floor to give him back. He talked to my Mum, who had come out when she'd heard me shout, and insisted that I didn't need to apologise. Mum had made me say sorry anyway, but he didn't laugh when Mum told him I wanted to be a scientist.

Instead, he said, "Go for it."

I liked him. I think his name was Mr Foyle.

It couldn't have been more than five minutes before the man came out of the lift. He wasn't the nice man; he had black hair and was taller, his face was grey and his hands were shaking. He went back inside Mr Foyle's flat. He left the door open. "Come on," Joe said, "Let's go have a look."

"We shouldn't. That's spying."

"It's not!"

"It is! You get arrested by the police and then they'll lock you up for the rest of your life."

Joe went and sulked on the stairs, but he didn't go inside our flat like he usually does. We both wanted to know what was going on.

That's when my best friend Lucy came up to sit with us. She was really excited. "My granny saw a burglar!"

"Really?" I asked, "Where?"

"He was on the fire escape. He climbed through a window!"

Joe scampered over and pointed at the flat which the man had gone into, "Was it that flat?"

Lucy thought for a moment, "Maybe. I think -"

She was interrupted by the lift stopping on our floor. People in green shirts and trousers opened the lift door and pulled a stretcher into the flat below us. Someone shouted, "Over here!" and then the door swung shut again.

I was beginning to feel scared. "Those are ambulance men. Someone's been hurt."

"Maybe they were attacked by the burglar!" Joe gasped.

"Shut up, Joe," Lucy said, "That's not nice."

"But they could have been," Joe pouted. "Look!"

The door had swung open again and the ambulance men came out, pulling the trolley. We huddled together, watching them. A man was lying on the trolley. He was wearing a white shirt so we could see all the blood and he was very pale.

It was Mr Foyle.

The ambulance men got into the lift, but there wasn't enough room for the other man, so he started running down the stairs. He ran even faster than last time.

Mum came out and made us go back inside when the policemen arrived.

For ages afterwards our floor kept talking about the ambulance. Mum didn't let Joe and me play on the landing for a week because she said that Mr Foyle had been attacked and they hadn't found who had done it.

Joe's friend's big brother said that the ghost had tried to kill Mr Foyle, but only Joe's friend had believed that.

Lucy heard from her granny that the burglar had broken in and stabbed Mr Foyle when Mr Foyle caught him.

Mr Ingram told my Mum that Mr Foyle had been shot and that the government hushed it up. Mum told him not to be silly.

No one knew if he was dead or not.

Except me.

I saw Mr Foyle yesterday. He came back to the flat with the dark-haired man. He was very thin and sometimes the dark-haired man would grab his elbow like he was afraid Mr Foyle was going to fall over. They came back with a laundry bag and the dark-haired man was telling jokes. Mr Foyle was smiling a lot. I remembered how pale the dark-haired man had been.

Last night I told Joe about this. We were wondering why he got shot. I said that he probably had been hurt by the burglar.

Joe said that Mr Foyle was really a secret agent like James Bond and he was shot by a baddie who wanted revenge.

I told him he was being silly.

Sometimes you can tell he's only eight.


End file.
